


Waiting To Do Something About It

by dedougal



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Multi, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedougal/pseuds/dedougal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aisha leaves to go do whatever it is she does. When she returns, she brings all sorts of things back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting To Do Something About It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katemonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katemonkey/gifts).



Aisha comes back to them with a lead, a new car, a rather spectacular smart bomb and a new tattoo. It probably says more to Clay about the way his life has changed that it’s that the tattoo that intrigues him most.

Aisha has been away from them long enough for the tattoo to heal completely and then some. She seemed happy enough to leave them hiding in plain sight, false identities, isolated house and a dock for fishing. It was different to Bolivia, although the long hot wet days spent getting to know the inside of a bottle of whiskey didn’t feel that different. They were home, as much as anywhere was home. They were close enough so that Pooch could take a couple of days, steal a truck and meet Jolene somewhere close to her house, close enough so that Jensen and Cougar could head off to drop past Jensen’s sister’s and do whatever they did.

Clay waited, not for Aisha. Sometimes he would scour the newspapers for hints of Max but most of the time he’d just sleep late, drink, smoke, fish and wait. His days were pretty full. Nights were a little different.

He catalogued things at night. Missions. Countries. Tattoos.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. More than this hurry up and wait. Clay wasn’t good at waiting; he wasn’t stupid and he wanted to be out there finding Max and taking revenge for his life, career, best friend, identity and those kids. Still with the kids. Clay found himself rubbing over his teddy bear tattoo. Getting it done by a half drunk tattooist in a back street in Bolivia while he himself was the rest of the way drunk.

Aisha scattered her treats among the group. Cougar spent a long time with the smart bomb, long enough for Jensen to get antsy and try to hack it. Pooch got rid of the car. He came back with cash. And Jensen scarred them all for life, trying out new sets of underwear for his research on the lead. He said the satin panties provided the best support. Cougar locked the room they were working in, claiming it was protection. Clay wondered if he should acknowledge their closeness, but wondered if that would mean acknowledging whatever he had with Aisha. Which wasn't much of anything.

Clay was the only one to see the tattoo. He wasn’t sure if he should expect her in his bed. It wasn’t their bed. It was his bed. He hadn’t brought anyone else to spread out on the scratchy navy sheets. There had been the weekend he’d spent in New Orleans, stocking up on supplies and helping tidy a graveyard because it felt like the right thing to do. Green eyed boy, that time, lips like a five hundred dollar whore, as perfectly out of place as he was. There was the red-headed waitress four towns over who liked pot and skinny dipping. He had to think to remember their names.

Aisha called him “papi” when she strolled into his room. It was early afternoon and Clay was still trying to rub the remains of his hangover from his eyes. The grimy curtains always made the sunlight seem yellow gold, like the sky outside wasn’t endless blue. The sheets were stuck to his back. Aisha dropped a gun on the nightstand then bent over to drop a kiss on his forehead.

“You want coffee, old man? You get it yourself,” she answered his inarticulate groan. Then she bound her hair back with the tight black band around her wrist and slipped out of her clothes. “I’ve been driving for days.”

It wasn’t like he had to ask where she had been. Chasing leads, meeting contacts. He knew how it went. It felt like a life he’d left behind, for all he’d sworn to steal their lives back. So he shifted over to let her slip into the bed, skin glowing in the light that made it too bright to sleep.

Aisha slept on her side, curled away from him. Her black top rode up, revealing the bumps of her spine, the scars of the knife wound she’d never explained. Clay shifted up on bed, letting the sheets pool down but made no attempt to start his day.

 

He saw the tattoo for the first time when he was mouthing over her stomach. He’d always liked doing this – licking along hip bones and into the cut of the hip. It always tasted clean, like sweat and skin sure enough, but clean. Sometimes he liked to mouth at underwear, sometimes he’d use his teeth to draw them down. Aisha wasn’t in the mood for any of it. She’d come out of the shower in a ratty old towel that might have been green once and thrown it on the floor before stretching out on the bed and looking at Clay.

Looking through Clay.

He’d rolled over to kiss her neck, run his fingertips over her collar bone, the barely there swell of her breast. He’d found himself face to face with her new tattoo and stopped to finally make eye contact. Her eyes were hard when he looked up. What? They seemed to ask.

Five cards. Maybe a hand of five card stud. But no hand that made any kind of sense. A joker, king of hearts, a queen of diamonds, a jack of spades and the ace of clubs. The cards were a little battered and blackened. Aisha had other tattoos. The bands on her arms were the ones visible most of the time. There was a stylised flame design at the base of her spine next to the knife scar. Clay ran his thumb over the cards. He could hide the entire design with two of his fingers.

Roque had done this – got tattoos after a mission. They’d done it side by side more times than Clay could really remember, stumbling back to base afterwards, or up alleys or, once, rather memorably, into the backroom bedroom with the tattooist. Claimed something about scars he was choosing rather than taking. He hadn’t expected it of Aisha.

Clay leaned up and kissed her lips, his breath whiskey sour and sleep addled. She didn’t flinch away.


End file.
